A study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, examined individual transmission capacities of bacterial species of Enterobacteriaceae.
Researchers conducted a post hoc analysis of a multicenter study in 13 intensive care units in Europe. They used prospective surveillance data and a mathematical model to estimate transmission capacities and single-admission reproduction numbers of Escherichia coli and non-E. coli Enterobacteriaceae — all resistant to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins.
The study shows of 11,420 patients included in the analysis the admission prevalence was 3.8 percent for non-E. coli Enterobacteriaceae, or non-EcE, and 3.3 percent for E. coli. Around 74 percent of non-EcE admissions were for Klebsiella pneumoniae. The acquisition rates were 7.4 and 2.6 per 100 admissions at risk for non-EcE and E. coli, respectively.
The estimated transmission capacity of non-EcE was 3.7 times higher than that of E. coli, resulting in single-admission reproduction numbers of 0.17 for non-EcE and 0.047 for E. coli.